Feeling Zen

Apologies to any Buddhists out there if I have misused their ox herding diagram. I stumbled across it yesterday and was fascinated by it. It signifies a Zen Buddhists journey towards enlightenment and wisdom. Deep, I know. But it struck me how similar it is to our own search for something. When we are young we work hard in pursuit of career, money or things, but as we get older that seems less and less fulfilling. It seems with every passing year I am more and more dissatisfied with our consumerist society, and the way I allow myself to get sucked into it. Yes...I am responsible for my own part in it. My annual feeling of dissatisfaction usually lines up pretty well with the end of summer. We have had some lovely Fall weather but that does not distract me from the inevitable march of winter. So as I envision the next few months hunkered down in my house I start looking around and realizing we have way more than we need. Time to start my annual purge of ....stuff. Maybe this time I will be able to resist giving in to the reverse pressure in Spring of nesting and gathering more junk in my house. Maybe.